Our Tahitian Pearl Farm

The Tuamotu Archipelago

Tahitian pearls are cultured on the low-lying coral atolls of the Tuamotu and Gambier Archipelago. The coral deposited on the summit of volcanoes became extinct millions of years ago. The formation of a coral reef is very slow; it rises from 0.5 to 2 meters per century. It is made of coral polyps, shells and skeletal remains of marine plants and animals. The atoll lagoons are surrounded by chains of low islets called “Motu”, which are only a few meters above the current sea-level. These atolls have the shape of a champagne glass: thousands of feet deep outside the open sea with a shallow (30-40m deep) lagoon inside and the people live on the narrow rim. Of the 400 atolls in the world there are 84 such atolls in French Polynesia and 78 in the Tuamotu archipelago. These are the atolls of Arutua, Apataki and Toau.

Farm Location and Facilities

In the middle of this motu–in the center of the above photo–we have set up a pearl farm among the coconut trees. Seeing the remoteness of the location sticking out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean we start with nothing and have to transport all the material necessary to build the facilities from the Island of Tahiti 300 miles southwest .

The Farm has to be built on the water to facilitate the transfer of the Mother of pearl from the Lagoon to the the processing center where we condition the shell for a total period of 3 Years from the time they are collected from spats to the harvest of pearls

Our Divers have to go back to the blue water where the mother of pearl oyster is safely rigged at a certain depth which is part of each farmer secrets and brought back to land which happened periodically every other month .

The precious Mother of Pearl oyster has to be protected in solid reinforced cages from the predators like monster parrot fish and also turtles and manta rays

Here is the working environment where all the mother of pearls are brought and carefully selected for cleaning and checked for heath and condition .

These are the oysters after only couple months in the water, covered with various algae, barnacles and other parasites .

Once they are cleaned they immediately go back in the lagoon waiting for another transfer back in the deep water .

This is the moment where farmers take all the risks ; only half of the seeded oysters will live and less than 20% will produce a pearl of commercial grade quality .

A big part of the success of pearl farming is in the hands of the person that introduce the nucleus that demand skill and takes years of experience to achieve a good rate of retention.

What is exactly a pearl? It is a gem which mineral is composed of calcium carbonate (CaC03) accounting for 93% of the pearl’s mass, 5% is organic matter and the rest is shared by calcium oxide and water. Such large amount of calcium carbonate is the direct result of the oyster feeding on a myriad of phytoplankton and diatoms which are particularly abundant in the lagoon of the Tuamotu archipelagos.

The calcium carbonate form crystals perfectly organized as the wonder of mother nature and are bound together by the organic substance called Conchioline, a material related to chitin which is the main skeletal component of insects and crustaceans.

The process of all pearl formation is so extraordinary and the factors involved are so big in number depending on farmers skills, water condition, temperature, genetics, conditioning, predators, etc. that the end result for a commercial grade pear alone is less than 30% and a AAA quality pearl is 5% or less.

What is the difference between a natural Pearl and a cultured pearl? The only difference is the nature of the nucleus around which the pearly substance forms. In natural pearls, sand particles, parasite eggs and other foreign objects form the center of the sphere, whereas an artificial nucleus of shell is inserted to grow cultured pearls. The pearl forming process in both is identical. A culture pearls is a product of the deposit of calcium carbonate around a shell nucleus made from a fresh water bivalve from the Mississippi river.

Most of the Oyster Mother of pearls are returned to the water after they have been harvested but here we have scarified one to show you where a pearl is formed ( see in the center of the picture).